Alien Seekers Report Repeated Radio Bursts

Breakthrough Listen – a global astronomical initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, launched in 2015 by Internet investor Yuri Milner and cosmologist Stephen Hawking used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to observe the bursts from the mysterious distant object known as FRB 121102.

This bring the total of known high-energy bursts from this strange object to more than 150.

The first known radio burst from FRB 121102 came on November 2, 2012 (hence the object’s name). Two more bursts occurred on May 17, 2015, and eight more on June 2, 2015. Astronomers had observed fast radio bursts (FRBs) in the past, but, because it repeats, this one quickly became the target of ongoing monitoring campaigns by instruments across the globe.

What causes the fast radio bursts, and why do they repeat? Astronomers don’t know but are trying to find out